Million-Dollar Donors Dominate Presidential Super PAC Giving

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More than half of the $442 million that was raised through April 30 by the single-candidate Super PACs supporting the presidential candidates came from a total of 101 donors who gave $1 million or more ($249 million, or 56% of the total, see Table 2).

Hillary Clinton’s Super PAC (Priorities USA Action) raised $69 million from twenty-nine of these million dollar megadonors. They accounted for 87% of the Super PAC’s receipts through April 30. When combined with the receipts in her candidate committee, the million-dollar Super PAC donors accounted for 24% of the money behind her campaign (Table 3). The remaining Super PAC money was raised on behalf of candidates who are no longer running.

Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump did not have supportive single-candidate Super PACs during the primaries. However, Trump self-financed by lending his campaign more than $43 million, and casino magnate Sheldon Adelson reportedly said in May that he was prepared to give $100 million to a pro-Trump Super PAC for the general election.

Among candidate committees, Clinton raised 44% of her money through April from a total of 35,128 donors who gave the maximum legal amount of $2,700 (see Table 1.) Sanders raised only 3% of his money from $2,700 donors. As noted, the bulk of Trump’s primary campaign was self-financed.

For a more detailed analysis of fundraising by the presidential candidates, Super PACs, and political parties, see CFI’s recent release on the subject available here. The earlier release includes detailed historical material going through April 30 and May 31, 2008 and 2012.

The Campaign Finance Institute is the nation's pre-eminent think tank for objective, non-partisan research on money in politics in U.S. federal and state elections. CFI's original work is published in scholarly journals as well as in forms regularly used by the media and policy making community. Statements made in its reports do not necessarily reflect the views of CFI's Trustees or financial supporters.